160 years ago...

If a few days ago we pictured Anne, Charlotte and Ellen Nussey arriving in Scarborough and drinking dandelion coffee, today the picture is rather gloomier. We must imagine what Ellen Nussey told Elizabeth Gaskell:

Picture: © Michael Armitage. Source: The Scarborough Connection.
Taken from the main balcony of the Grand Hotel; this is the view Anne would have had looking slightly to the left through her Wood's Lodgings room window.

She rose at seven o'clock, and performed most of her toilet herself, by her expressed wish. Her sister always yielded such points, believing it was the truest kindness not to press inability when it was not acknowledged. Nothing occurred to excite alarm till about 11 A.M. She then spoke of feeling a change.' She believed she had not long to live. Could she reach home alive, if we prepared immediately for departure?' A physician was sent for. Her address to him was made with perfect composure. She begged him to say ' How long he thought she might live; - not to fear speaking the truth, for she was not afraid to die.' The doctor reluctantly admitted that the angel of death was already arrived, and that life was ebbing fast. She thanked him for his truthfulness, and he departed to come again very soon. She still occupied her easy chair, looking so serene, so reliant there was no opening for grief as yet, though all knew the separation was at hand. She clasped her hands, and reverently invoked a blessing from on high; first upon her sister, then upon her friend, to whom she said, 'Be a sister in my stead. Give Charlotte as much of your company as you can.' She then thanked each for her kindness and attention.
"Ere long the restlessness of approaching death appeared, and she was borne to the sofa; on being asked if she were easier, she looked gratefully at her questioner, and said, 'It is not you who can give me ease, but soon all will be well, through the merits of our Redeemer.' Shortly after this, seeing that her sister could hardly restrain her grief, she said, ' Take courage, Charlotte; take courage. Her faith never failed, and her eye never dimmed till about two o'clock, when she calmly and without a sigh passed from the temporal to the eternal. So still, and so hallowed were her last hours and moments. There was no thought of assistance or of dread. The doctor came and went two or three times. The hostess knew that death was near, yet so little was the house disturbed by the presence of the dying, and the sorrow of those so nearly bereaved, that dinner was announced as ready, through the half-opened door, as the living sister was closing the eyes of the dead one. She could now no more stay the welled-up grief of her sister with her emphatic and dying ' Take courage,' and it burst forth in brief but agonising strength. Charlotte's affection, however, had another channel, and there it turned in thought, in care, and in tenderness. There was bereavement, but there was not solitude; - sympathy was at hand, and it was accepted.

Categories: Anne Brontë, Reminder